The move to more proactive sourcing of partnering opportunities

PR Newswire recently ran a survey which reinforces how PR has changed. As I see it, as traditional media either evolves or dies, the traditional media relations-only model of PR will evolve or die with it. Public relations work will transform more into earned, owned, and paid media generation, and PR professionals will find themselves increasingly doing work that transcends the traditionally rigid boundaries of earned, owned, or paid media.' The survey results showed some new focuses and traditional challenges. Using more video in communications and incorporating content marketing or “slow PR” tactics into the mix top the resolutions of the public relations pros who responded to our recent informal survey. Two perennial challenges – improving PR measurement and better utilization of social channels – are also high on PR’s list of things to do this year. …

4 inspiring examples of B2B companies harnessing social media for B2B marketing

In our 7 Steps B2B Digital Marketing Guide we show the importance of tailoring planning and content generation and curation around the specific needs of business-to-business (B2B) buyers when positioning B2B products and services. In this post I will look at more examples of B2B companies making good use of social media.

Social media and business are two phrases that have sat uncomfortably for several years; I think for good reason. I think about my own use of social media going back before 2008 to when the major platforms developed into mass audience participation, real-time news and networking sites, and the ways in which people use them. Business applications of social media do appear to have been shoehorned in as an afterthought.

In previous posts, we talked about the importance of curating content and creating great original content and offered…

5 reasons you should continue guest blogging and 10 actions you should take given Matt Cutt’s latest advice affecting content marketers

Alert importance: [rating=5] Recommended link: Matt Cutts: The Decay and Fall of guest blogging for SEO If you work in SEO, the biggest development so far in 2014 is Matt Cutts of Google's clear guidance for marketers to cease guest blogging. But Guest blogging isn’t just an obscure SEO tactic, it’s used by many media sites and brands, so many businesses who practice content marketing will be affected by this. His new post this week starts with this seemingly unequivocal piece of guidance: “Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company”. He…

Ideas to increase visibility and sharing on Slideshare

I thought this was a nice piece of content marketing by Slideshare, so thought it was worth sharing to highlight Slideshare’s ongoing importance if you market to professional B2B audiences. As Dan said in this previous post on 7 Reasons B2B marketers should love Slideshare: "Assuming that you’re a B2B marketer, and have good content that can be directly used or re-purposed for Slideshare, we think that Slideshare is a grossly under-utilised tool, especially since the “Pro” version launched" This new Slideshare from Slideshare is worth scanning if your a B2B Marketer since it’s a nice summary of what worked for companies recently with examples. SlideShare Zeitgeist 2013 from SlideShare Apart from the deck itself, the content marketing I…

4 Steps to Inbound Marketing Success

One of the biggest challenges business owners as well as marketers will face in 2014 is how they can use different online media together to achieve inbound marketing success.  Many think of (social media, email, search…etc) in silos, and that’s the reason why many inbound marketing strategies may fail. In order for you to be able to design a less siloed, more effective inbound marketing strategy, I have found you need 3 elements:

1. A defined customer journey

This begins when a complete stranger finds your brand online. They go through a conversion path that is designed to turn them into customers and then turn those customers into evangelists who will promote your brand for you. You might get lucky turning very few of those strangers into customers from the first interaction if your product and copy resonates with them really well, but then you’ll be missing on…

Affiliate experts share their frustrations from 2013 and expectations for 2014

Affiliate Marketing had a big year in 2013 with the industry now estimated to be worth a staggering £9bn. With that in mind I asked some thought leaders in the Affiliate Marketing industry for some of their thoughts on 2013 and what they think will change in 2014. A big thanks to Kevin Edwards, Strategy Director at Affiliate Window, Helen Southgate, UK MD Affilinet and Owen Hewitson, Associate Director Acquisition from Starcom MediaVest Group.

2014 is fast approaching. Where do you think we will see the biggest changes over the next 12 months?

Helen Southgate (HS): I’m not sure we’ll see any big changes as such, more a development and progression of the current channel. There will be some regulation areas to look out for though. The RMR comes into effect from 1st Jan…

Our entire 68-point workflow for setting up and presenting a successful webinar

Do you use webinars and want to make them more effective, or are you considering using them for the first time in 2014? In this post I'll share what we have found works for us, grouped into 11 steps. What you’ll get in this blog post: Three reasons why we host webinars—and why you probably should too. Some great technology that will hugely improve the quality of your webinars. Proven templates for all the documents you’ll need to create (emails, blog posts, etc.). Pre-webinar tasks you must complete before you start. Some easy-to-make embarrassing webinar blunders we’ve made, and how you can avoid them. How to edit the slides and video and post them to your blog.

Why you should consider hosting webinars

Webinars are highly effective for communicating with your target market. In fact, this year we have experimented with turning down almost every conference speaking request…

Check you’re not making these 5 mobile SEO mistakes to get your SEO right in 2014

Importance: [rating=5] Recommended link: Google’s new advice covering mobile SEO mistakes

December 2013 update

We originally alerted readers to Google's new advice on mobile SEO in June 2013. This is a BIG deal since more searchers are performing mobile searches and your mobile SEO traffic may fall if you get the user experience wrong as explained below. In this update, Google have again highlighted the importance of a seamless mobile experience by releasing a new tool to help site owners review mobile SEO errors. We also advise comparing your mobile/desktop SEO traffic in analytics to see whether you may be missing out on mobile SEO visits. Here is the output from the new Google Webmaster's tool taken from Google's new announcement:

June 17th…

A step-by-step guide to creating rich snippets for e-commerce sites to help boost your SERPS CTR

Google's Structured Data Mark-up Helper appeared in May 2013 and it can be an effective tool in your structured data arsenal that will help you improve your CTR (clickthrough rate).  The benefits, according to Google are that:  'If you mark up these pages, Google may make the information available as rich snippets on search result pages or in other Google properties. Information such as a product's name, price, and review ratings can help users decide which pages to click on in search results'. In plain English, if we have an e-commerce site, why have a basic snippet appearing on search results (like the one below), when we can have a better one that is going to improve our CTR?

With the implementation…

Using custom audiences to improve Facebook targeting 

How would you like to target advertising to people with similar characteristics to your existing customers and prospects? Like subscribers on your mailing list for instance? Well, that's the offer of Facebook's custom audiences. It's no longer new, in fact, checking the Smart Insights alert when it was launched, it dates back to March 2013 - Facebook launches "Lookalike Ad Targeting".

Custom Audiences are one of the more advanced features Power Editor users get to enjoy, Facebook gives you the lowdown on Custom Audiences in its help section but I'll attempt to provide you with a step-by-step guide here.

Firstly, this is not an introduction to Power Editor. If you've not used it before, this tutorial is not necessarily going to make a lot of sense. Power Editor is a useful Chrome app that gives you way more control and functionality than Facebook's…